Hunted by the Sky

by Tanaz Bhathena

  “The sort that life gives you. The world you are going into is not going to care for your feelings.”

  Maybe not, I think. But there are differences in Kali’s reprimands and Amira’s. Amira’s hardness comes from a place of contempt. I may fear Amira, even pity her for her sufferings, but I do not respect her.

  “I will try,” I say out loud. How, I don’t know.

  There’s a pause before Kali replies. “How did you produce your shield?”

  I blink, surprised by the change in subject. “I guess I concentrated on the word protect. And … I remembered a time my magic had emerged without my knowing, protecting me from harm.” I tell Kali about how my mother caught me when I jumped from that tree, how I floated above the ground. “I felt calm because I knew I’d done it before. I felt that even if Ma had not come to catch me, I could have been able to save myself. But what works for the shield spell doesn’t seem to for an attacking spell. And I don’t understand why.”

  “The human mind is complex,” Kali says, a thoughtful look on her face. “Every magus wields power differently. It’s why Amira’s instructions may seem useless to you. Amira feels most powerful when she rids herself of emotion and turns her mind to a blank slate. You, on the other hand, seem to get power from tapping into your emotions and into memories that make you feel safe.”

  I sigh. “I wish I knew what memory I need to do an attacking spell.”

  “You’ll figure it out.” Kali speaks with such confidence that even I believe her for a moment. “I have faith in you.”

  “Thanks.”

  For now, Kali’s faith is all I have.

  * * *

  Later that night, as I’m falling asleep on my cot, a candle lights up the doorway to our shared dormitory.

  “Where were you?” a voice whispers.

  “Out in the fields with the farmer’s boy,” another voice says, giggling. In the dim light, I make out two figures: Urvashi and Prerna, a pair of novices I hardly ever speak to even though we share sleeping quarters.

  “Amira nearly caught me sneaking in,” Prerna whispers. “Can you imagine my punishment? I’d end up smelling of manure like our dear Gul. No boy would ever want to touch me again!”

  “Amira is such a witch.” Urvashi’s voice, though soft, is far more carrying than Prerna’s in the silence. “I wonder why Juhi keeps her around. Especially after what happened in Havanpur.”

  My ears, already alert upon hearing my name, sharpen even further.

  “What happened in Havanpur?” Prerna echoes the question in my head.

  A smile appears on Urvashi, equal parts beautiful and cruel, before she whispers the secret out loud.

  DEATH MAGIC

  23rd day of the Month of Drought

  Year 22 of King Lohar’s reign

  11

  GUL

  “Ready?” Amira asks.

  We’re seven weeks into training, and my shield spell is now strong enough to repel most of the magic Amira sends my way. But I still haven’t been able to retaliate with an attack of my own. Now, with only seven days left before my test, both of our tempers are on edge, Amira’s tongue lashing out more and more like a serrated knife.

  “Yes,” I barely have time to say before Amira sends the first attack my way. Shield raised, I begin to concentrate. You have magic in you, Gul. You can do this.

  Instead of focusing on anger or fear or any other emotion, I dig deep, looking for a memory that made me feel safe as a child. I remember Papa reading me a bedtime story and focus on that. A feeling similar to the calm I felt while producing the shield rises: like sun-baked earth, like a roti fluffing on the fire. Attack, I think, over and over, until the word becomes a mantra evoked by a priest at a temple. The tip of my seaglass dagger glows red, releases hot sparks into the air. I frown. The spell wasn’t strong enough. But why?

  It’s the memory, a voice in my head says. It needs to be stronger.

  “More!” Amira shouts. “You need more! Concentrate!”

  I try. I search for other memories; surely, I have more. But it’s hard to think of happy things with Amira sending spell after spell my way, her shouts hammering the inside of my skull. My birthmark begins to burn. Sting. A trail of wet slides down my nostril and onto my lips. Blood. My head feels like a pair of tongs have been clamped around it, but I push.

  Past the fear.

  Past the anger.

  Past the pain.

  From where only sparks had emerged, now there is fire, a straight streak of green flame, which bursts from my daggers and hits Amira’s shield … before rebounding, forcing me to jump out of the way.

  “Come on! Focus, princess!”

  “I am focusing! Didn’t you see what I—”

  She shoots a stream of arrows at me next that, instead of shielding, I roll away from.

  “Pathetic,” Amira spits out. “Do you think you’re being amusing? That you’ll find magic like a swarna lying on the floor?”

  Rage, building slowly ever since the lesson started tonight, perhaps ever since Amira and I first met, bursts out of me: “At least I didn’t whore myself out in Havanpur for a few coins!”

  A blast, sharper than ice, hotter than flame, throws me back against the wall of the training room, disorienting me so badly I can barely stand. Amira’s face is ashen, sweat matting strands of long hair to her brow. She wipes them away before rising to her feet.

  “What did you say?”

  My mouth tastes of blood. I don’t dare spit it out. “I know about Havanpur. I know what you did there.”

  Amira stares at me for a long moment. Her eyes grow glassy. She drops her own weapon to the floor with a clatter. “Our training ends here.”

  For a long time, I sit there on the dirt floor, staring at the space she once occupied. I don’t know why, instead of feeling satisfied, I feel sick. Like I’ve done something irreparably wrong.

  I can’t bear to go back to my dormitory. Instead, I sit on the stairs leading into the courtyard, my shoulders sagging, my head still hurting from the force of Amira’s retaliation. Moments later, a figure approaches, settles down next to me. I smell the amla Juhi oils her hair with. If not for what just happened, I would be overjoyed to see her.

  “Amira told me she won’t be training you anymore,” Juhi says quietly. “And she won’t say why. Will you?”

  I’m tempted to say nothing. But one look at Juhi’s sympathetic face and everything comes pouring out—the training session tonight, Amira’s taunts, and what I said in return. There’s a long silence. I wait for Juhi to slap me or render a worse punishment than what I already have. She doesn’t.

  “When I first saw Amira, she was in one of the labor camps near Ambarvadi,” she says. “She was perhaps twelve or thirteen, and her teeth had been bloodied from biting one of the guards. He wanted to know what tricks she’d learned in Havanpur. I guess she showed him.”

  I cover my mouth in an effort not to throw up. Amira was only twelve!

  “Back then, I was scheming to get out of the palace,” Juhi continues. “I didn’t know when that would happen. But I knew it would. On a whim, I asked to see the prisoners alone. No one thought it strange back then. I had a reputation for trying to help whom they considered worthless causes. I was also one of Lohar’s queens, and queens had some privileges over the guards. When I reached Amira’s cell, I don’t know what came over me. I kneeled next to her and said: ‘Make sure you can run.’ I’m not even sure if she registered the words at the time.

  “But the day finally came. I staged my own death and escaped the palace with the help of a few palace workers I trusted. I later found out that the head gardener, Latif, died trying to protect me.” Juhi’s voice has the flatness of someone forced to relive a nightmare far too many times to count. “I could have escaped then. Gone back to Samudra. But I remembered the bargain my sister had made with Lohar. Their magical contract would have forced her to return me to him. With home no longer an option, I felt lost, even a little hopel
ess. Then I recalled the girl in the labor camp, the one I begged to stay alive. It took me four days to reach the camp on foot, to knock out one of the guards and steal her uniform.

  “Amira was there. Starving, but still alive. And she had Kali with her. So I took them both with me. Sneaked out into the night with no one the wiser. I heard later that the supervisor of that labor camp was transferred somewhere else and that new security measures were put in place. We were lucky to escape when we did.”

  I’m silent for a long moment. “There’s one thing I don’t understand,” I say. “If Amira’s and Kali’s magic had been drained, then how can they do magic now?”

  “That’s something I couldn’t quite understand myself. I’d seen girls who had been drained of magic before. Some were little more than husks: creatures without souls. But Amira wasn’t. Neither was Kali. My only guess is that whoever was assigned to drain them of magic hadn’t done a proper job of it. It took Kali over a year to regain her powers, Amira even longer—around two years.

  “Prayer and meditation help in these cases, and so they meditated to the four gods, to Prophet Zaal, to Sant Javer. They practiced magic until they collapsed with exhaustion. And even if they hadn’t regained their powers, it wouldn’t have mattered to me. The day I rescued them, I vowed that we would be sisters in life and death. And that I would always protect them.”

  I can’t help but feel awed by her story. “Was that how the Sisterhood was formed?”

  “Yes. Amira told me that she and Kali would feel like thorns in my side. Kali countered that they were like the gold lotuses of Javeribad, the kind that bloomed in the mud. That’s how we came up with the name.”

  The Sisterhood of the Golden Lotus. As badly as I want that tattoo on my palm, I know now that I am not worthy of it. Not one bit.

  “I understand why Amira told Kali I haven’t suffered enough,” I say. “I haven’t. Not like that.”

  “Suffering is different for different people. The gods never give you more than you can bear at a certain time in your life. Perhaps they have other tests planned for you. Other challenges that they might only reveal in the future.”

  I shake my head. “That’s so arbitrary. As if we’re nothing but simply stringed puppets pulled at by the gods on a whim.”

  “You sound like Amira.” Juhi laughs upon seeing the stunned look on my face. “She gave me the same argument when she came of age and became a follower of Prophet Zaal. Zaalians believe in the concept of free will in the face of magic. Amira’s determination alone helped her regain her lost magic.”

  “Well, maybe the Zaalians have the right idea,” I say after a long pause. “Maybe it’s only magic—unstable and whimsical—that controls the world we live in with no care for humans or their miseries. The sky goddess didn’t come to my aid when the Sky Warriors murdered my parents. Neither did she rescue Amira and Kali. You did.”

  “Perhaps the sky goddess was the one who sent me.”

  “That’s maddening logic.”

  “You have your beliefs; I have mine.”

  It’s not really a rebuke—Juhi’s smiling—but I decide to say nothing further on the subject. I turn back to the courtyard, where, in a few hours, Uma Didi will lead the novices through the stretches that will prepare them for Yudhnatam, hands and toes gripping the dirt, faces turned up to the sun.

  “Do you really think that I’m the Star Warrior?” Spoken out loud, it sounds even more foolish than it did in my head.

  “Every heart holds a warrior. Some are born, some are made, while some choose to never take up arms. What you are and who you will become will be entirely up to you.”

  “Do you give straight answers to anyone?”

  Juhi laughs again. “Don’t blame me. You’re the one who still has to pass her test, remember?”

  “I don’t know if I will be able to pass your test without Amira training me.”

  “Perhaps you don’t need Amira. Perhaps you can do it on your own.” She taps my nose. “Go on now. Get some rest.”

  At the end of the hallway, I turn one last time to see Juhi still there, staring up at the stars.

  * * *

  Over the next few days, my attempts to apologize to Amira are met with unsurprising resistance. Every time I try to talk to her, she makes an excuse and leaves the house or pretends she doesn’t see me.

  I try to recruit Kali’s help, but she shakes her head. “This is between you two. I am not going to interfere.” Kali’s thick bandage is now gone, three upraised scars marring her waist under the band of her sari blouse.

  “I’m sorry.” The words feel heavy in my mouth.

  “I’m not the one you should be apologizing to.” Kali’s cool voice isn’t a reprimand. Not quite. But after hearing the story Juhi told me, I’m not surprised by her reaction. By wielding Amira’s terrible secret as a weapon, I’ve broken Kali’s trust as well.

  As a last resort, I painstakingly pen a note in my best writing on fresh parchment: I apologize for the hurt I inflicted on you. Gul. When it’s empty, I slip into the room Amira shares with Kali and place the note on her cot.

  I don’t see Amira the next day or even the next. Then, one afternoon, as I’m crouched to the ground, sweeping the courtyard as part of my chores, a shadow falls over me. Amira. I start rising to my feet, another apology poised on my tongue, when she holds up the note and slowly tears it in one half. Then another. Bit by bit, allowing the pieces to float to the ground, like a tree shedding leaves during the Month of Drought.

  “Sweep that up, will you?” she says before turning on her heel and walking away.

  * * *

  Rain clouds gather in the sky on the night of my test. The light drizzle eventually grows into a steady downpour, and several novices rush into the courtyard, laughing, splashing in the puddles like five-year-olds. Normally, I would be right there with them, but I’m too depressed tonight.

  I head to the training room—more out of habit than any willingness to practice—and pull out the map I’d made of Ambar Fort over the past two years. I hold the parchment straight and slowly rip it in half, then in quarters. Moments later, I’m sitting on the ground, surrounded by pieces of paper. Why keep the map when I am never going to get into the palace?

  You still have the test, a voice in my head reminds me.

  “What’s the point?” I say out loud. I feel dull all of a sudden, the anger draining out of me. “I’m going to fail.”

  The daggers I normally use are now locked up in the armory—along with Amira’s spear. I stare at the gunnysack in the corner of the training room—the one I’d tried to destroy six weeks ago. Outside, rain continues to pour, the drops tapping against the room’s small window.

  Tap tap taptaptap tap. The sound brings forth a memory from my childhood, when we lived in the village of Sur. Rainy afternoons, when I would sneak into my parents’ bedroom and lie on my father’s side of the bed, reading one of his old scrolls to the sound of a sparrow persistently pecking at the mirror nailed to the door of the old cupboard.

  “Why does it do that?” I asked Papa once. “The sparrow?”

  “It thinks another sparrow lives in the mirror,” Papa said, smiling. “Look at its focus! It does not know it’s staring at itself. It’s a lesson of sorts, don’t you think?”

  “A lesson?”

  “A reminder really. To step back sometimes and allow yourself to look at the bigger picture.”

  And that’s what I do now. Instead of focusing on a single, simple memory, I step back and recall the sound of my father’s voice. I retrace the lines and planes of his face, the scar that he’d grown a beard to hide. I recall the booming way he laughed whenever he found anything funny; I pretend I can feel the sandpaper texture of his hand brush my cheek again. Papa’s favorite color was green, like the tunic he wore at the moon festival two years ago. He believed in justice and in the good of the world, and he loved me and Ma unconditionally.

  My mind grows still. Warmth skids from the birt
hmark and across my right hand, which begins glowing like the sun. Sparks erupt from my fingertips, rise and swirl in the air, encircling me in a web of light.

  Without thinking, without even understanding why, I use my hand to gather the sparks, buzzing like fireflies against my palm. My head begins to pound. Just when I think I can’t bear the pain in my skull any longer, a beam of red light bursts from my hand—and forms a spear that sinks into the sack, rice spilling out like water, turning to dust as it hits the ground.

  Moments later, I grow aware of another presence in the room. When I turn, I find Juhi standing by the door, her dark eyes reflecting my still-glowing hands.

  “J-Juhi Didi. Did you see what I…”

  “I saw,” she says. “I saw everything.” As she moves closer, I see a smile. And something else that I’m too afraid to give a name to.

  Slowly, she waves a hand over the ruined sack. I hold my breath, waiting for a long moment. But nothing happens. My magic held true. I have passed the test.

  “Wait here,” Juhi says abruptly before leaving the room. I wonder if she has gone to fetch Amira and Kali, but a moment later, Juhi returns alone. In her hands she’s holding—

  “The seaglass daggers you like so much.” She gives me a smile. “My father gave them to me when I was sixteen. But, based on what Amira told me, I think they suit you better.”

  “Juhi Didi!” I protest. “I can’t!” But when she presses them into my hands, I find my fingers curling around the hilts, the fit so perfect that they might have been made for me.

  “Performing death magic without a weapon is still dangerous,” Juhi reminds me. As much as I long to deny this, I know she’s right, my head still throbbing from the spell I cast.

  “It’s time you found your place in the world.”